Literary festival books in for a fourth star-studded event

Line-up includes Prunella Scales and Lady Antonia Fraser

Prunella Scales who is appearing at this year's Surrey Heath Book Festival over May 9-11 (Photo: John Thaxter)

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Surrey Heath’s annual literary festival will return for the fourth time in May following the success of last year’s star-studded event.

The three-day Surrey Heath Book Festival is back next month and promises an even bigger and more varied line-up than ever before.

A glittering array of literary talent, celebrated thinkers and stars of the silver screen are set to light up Camberley Theatre from May 9 to 11.

Award-winning historian Lady Antonia Fraser will appear on May 9 while Prunella Scales, 81, perhaps best known for playing Sybil Fawlty in Fawlty Towers, will join forces with poet Leo Aylen for a rip-roaring recital on Saturday May 10.

As well as a diverse line-up of authors, there will be family events, two writing workshops, and new for this year, an exhibition of book sculptures by artist Justin Rowe.

Festival favourite, broadcaster Juliette Foster, will also be back for 2014 to host the hugely popular Big Read panel. Samantha Watson, Camberley Theatre’s marketing manager, said the festival was now a cornerstone of the Surrey Heath cultural calendar.

She described Lady Antonia and Scales as “admirable women” whom she expects will be very popular.

“Another highlight will be the exhibition of book sculptures by Justin Rowe; his paper art sculptures are exquisite and well worth seeing.

“Most of all, we’re all looking forward to meeting lots of our fellow book lovers. That really is one of the great thing about the festival, it brings people together.”

Honor Blackman, one of the stars of last year's Surrey Heath Literary Festival

Lady Antonia, 81, will open the festival at 7.30pm on May 9 by introducing her new book Perilous Question, an exploration of pre-Victorian life around the landmark signing of the 1832 Great Reform Bill.

She was made DBE for her services to literature in 2011 and was married to playwright Harold Pinter, who died in 2008.

Saturday will start with children’s fiction workshops, hosted by novelist Elizabeth Kay, for anyone seeking to expand their skills or write for children.

This will be followed by The Big Read at 3.30pm, an audience and panel discussion of Isabel Wolfe’s Ghostwritten, before Scales and Aylen take to the stage at 7.30pm.

The pair will be performing a series of humorous and thought-provoking pieces set anywhere from a Brixton police station to Ice Age Europe.

On the last day Frimley resident of 30 years and novelist, Miriam Wakerly, will be holding her Writing From Life workshop to encourage people to explore their own stories and bring them to life in the form of a memoir.